Trickster ink

I was desperate to write down the rhymes before they were gone and pleaded a trickster skald for some ink. Never again...

— Lækúr, a skald

Characteristics

The trickster ink is a substance strikingly similar to the general purpose ink. It is a black, slightly viscous fluid, which easily stains parchment and paper. There is, however, one minor difference — shortly after the use, parts of the strokes fade as if the ink was never there. Sadly, it is; and will prevent other inks from taking its place.

Typical use

Secrecy

By the trickster skalds the ink is very often used for secrecy as the transparency feature can be seen as a riddle of sorts. In each and every case, the code will differ as it is ascribed to the ink in the moment of preparation.

Worth noting!
The trickster skalds love riddles and many of them will go to great lengths in order to identify the concept weft within the ink. When that is revealed, usually two things will happen: either the weft will be replaced with their own or a new one will be added to make the weave even more complex.

Pranks

Most often than not the tricksters will switch the classical ink for their own to pull a prank on their fellow skalds. It is worth noting that the transparency effect is not immediate and takes some tens of seconds to take full form. It is usually in this moment that the skalds realize they were being played — to their "despair" and to the joy of the tricksters.

Invention

Discovery

As is many major items related to trickster skalds, the invention of the trickster ink is also ascribed to Till Ulchabhan — the very first trickster skald. There exist quite a handful of texts from his Ædean journeys, typically in a form of parchment scrolls, some of them seemingly empty for a naked eye. While many scrolls were deciphered by the next drygioni, many others still await for their turn.

When experimenting with different substrates the author of the scroll noted that when using a two-coloured oaken apples, the solution was behaved similar to a mixture of two immiscible liquids. Even though the physical colour remains intact, small differences could become visible under high illumination. Moreover, the lighter colour would eventually bleach out, while the other would not. The author of Ullmhú dúch fánach scroll observed that weaving a weft prepared by connecting emotion intensity to the bleaching of the "lighter" part made the ink sensitive to emotions of the writer. The greater was the passion of the writer, the faster parts of the script would disappear as if they were never there.

See the unseen

Similar to picking an unknown lock, to see the writing in full one needs to use a trick themselves. Since the ink leaves permanent stains, one can either color the surrounding or go through the trouble of finding the secret behind the selectivity of the disappearance pattern. Most people don't bother wasting time on the tricksters' riddles and when faced with the situation of accidental use of the trickster ink they either throw it away or save it to pull a prank on someone else.

It should be noted that the first option will not always work. On several occassions people have reported not being able to reveal the places stained by the invisible ink. The substance would then take in the colour of the parchment in the places outside of the stains.